Just as the common example, Ramadan has come to an end and a sharp upsurge in the patronage of brothels and beer parlors noticeable. Do not get me wrong, same could be said of quadragesimal period. A great number of us display piety louder than the Pope and the chiefest of Sheikhs just around those periods that we observe our religious abstinence, but other than those times, we are just as evil as the devil can be.

Yours truly was Ebuka’s guest at Channels TV last Sunday. It was a live cast of the famous programme for youths, Rubbin’Minds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJmy8Q_xx2Q), immediately after which I was appealed to by Victor of Channels Beams to wait for a recording of his programme, claiming that Sunday was the only window left for him, else he may have to do a repeat of one of his old recordings. Just as a part of me will always want to go out to put smiles on peoples’ faces, sometimes to my own detriment; I did wait. Both Seun (the producer of Rubbin’ Minds) and Victor (the presenter of Channels Beam) promised to be on my trail as I left their Studio around 5pm to travel to Ife that Sunday, but to my utmost amazement, none of them have called me till date. I have spoken to Seun after then (I called him) and if you wonder why I’m saying this in spite of an honorarium, I have news for you: there is nothing like that. I drove myself to their studio. They must have thought I would be glad to be on TV but it was all in honor of a noble friend and brother, Lanre Lagunju , who prevailed upon me the previous week to be on the programme. I felt a bit slighted but my understanding of human nature has taught me that we all have a covert use-and-dump attitude in us.

I was involved in an accident around Gbongan that evening as I ran into one of the road bumps, thanks to bad street lighting. The alternator belt gave way, invariably affecting the charging system of the car. It took the grace of God and the help of three men, Mr. Animashaun and his son, whom I had given a ‘lift’ around Wasimi before the incident, and a commuter bus driver, Moses, for my car to be towed to destination around 11pm. It was an agonizing experience for me. May God bless them all. I doubt if they will ever get to read this piece, but I will encourage them as we have become pals since that day, talking on the phones almost every day.

The mechanic saw a kill on Monday morning as he exploited the situation to the fullest. I had to dance to his tune as I had no choice. Am back to base. Thank God for journey mercies.

The road to Ife has always been bad, even during my university days, but to my astonishment, the good roads that have been built /completed by this government were nowhere to be seen as I had to be extra-cautious of the many death traps on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

I sat with the erudite Professor of Pharmacy, Professor Adebayo Lamikanra, in his office and he chatted me up on his frustration about Nigerian roads, without having heard of my experience of the previous night. He told me how he had gone to Osun State College of Education and found that the roads within the school premises had totally given way, obviously, from non- maintenance since they were built. I can’t describe the dissatisfaction on this gentleman’s face. He is in his mid 60s so he told me how happy some of them were when the military took over in 1983 due to the bastardizing of the system by the then politicians. He said he later became psychologically brutalized when the ‘khaki boys’ wouldn’t behave as human beings, but that they (intellectuals) continued to write (writings that would have been frowned at by the then military government) at the risk of their lives. The Professor expressed his depression when he came to the conclusion that these present day politicians are much worse than the pre- 1983-Military-takeover politicians.

I met with some of my lecturers in Ife. The same offices. The same toilets. The same ‘black boards’. Nothing has changed except that younger lecturers have been employed to take the place of some retired academics. I met one of the new recruits who was so full of himself and yours truly did cut him to size. He expected me to roll on the floor in the name of greeting him. I made him understand that I just greeted the VC the way a gentleman should: handshake. He took me to be one of his students (I am an El-Rufai-like person). I later found out we bear the same surname and he was just 3yrs my senior. We made up.

I am sure you are wondering why this travelogue? Well, I will like you to read between the lines. If I had been asked to tell where Mr Animashaun hails from, going by his physique, I would have taken him to be an Easterner because he was decked in suit and had a briefcase in his hand. When we got talking I found out he is a Moslem from Gbongan. I would have taken Moses to be a Moslem judging from his intonation. I never would have thought Professor Lamikanra could offer me a seat in his office let alone a chat. I could never have imagined moving close to the VC’s office, not to talk of a handshake from him. But I would have expected Seun and Victor to show the same affection they have for their programmes to the people they invite onto their respective shows, especially as we are of the same generation. I would have expected the mechanic to be lenient in milking me particularly as I spoke to him in an undiluted Yoruba tongue, having seen that his tribal marks wouldn’t have belonged to any other tribe than Yoruba; instead he said,ara eko ni yin, e san owo nla. I would have expected the newly recruited lecturer to be open-minded because he is youthful. In all, I learnt that a person is a person and a race is a race.

I would have expected this government to stop this ‘lying lying thing.’

Ill-timed.

That Brother Jonathan declared his nimble intention amidst great fanfare the day after many pupils were bombed in Potiskum should not be a surprise to anyone who has been following the development around here, unless the person was asleep when the PDP went dancing in Kaduna the day after over 200 girls were abducted from Chibok. Read #Pausibility: Your Daily Bomb-o-scope, Don’t Go Out Without It to understand the overall thinking capacity of a typical Nigerian politician.

And those Aggrieved Peoples Consortium members should go and sit down jor. All we hear are commentaries by their media handler(s) which at times causes one to question their preparedness to stand as a true opposition party. Let them set their house in motion. By now we should be seeing posters; watching resourceful adverts, and hearing inspiring jingles of their Presidential candidate, They should call their ‘lying’ Mohammed to order jor.